Word: fredericus
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...Fredericus U J.H. Witte is a Dutchman bothered by taxes. When he sees a jet fighter plane overhead he thinks to himself: "During my whole lifetime I won't earn half of what that plane costs." On the bitter morning in February 1957 when The Netherlands' bureaucracy finally produced his 1955 tax bill, Witte exploded in anger. As an assistant bookkeeper for a Rotterdam housing association, Witte, 57, was sure of his own figures. The tax collector, he fumed, had made a mistake...
Cooling off, Fredericus Witte wrote a reasoned letter of protest. "I consider it very disturbing," he began, and at that point the Inspector of Direct Taxation, First Section, must have decided to read the sentence again: "I consider it very disturbing if I am not required to pay more. If I pay too little, somebody else suffers for it. That's dishonest." According to Witte's calculations, the tax collector had listed Witte's total income 247 guilders ($64.96) less than it should be, thereby reducing Witte's tax by 42 guilders ($11.05). Witte wanted...
...days all Berlin had been talking of nothing else but the entry of General feldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg, President-elect, into the capital. The Monarchists prepared to give him a royal welcome, not omitting renditions of Fredericus Rev, a martial Monarchial anthem (later forbidden). Republicans boycotted the proceeding. Communists threatened to stage counterdemonstrations (later forbidden). Finally, der Tag arrived. Chancellor Hans Luther, with his 10-year-old daughter, motored from the Chancellery to the railway station. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Monarchists, lined the streets. All Berlin, or so it seemed, was draped in the old Imperial colors...
...Then Fredericus addressed unwinged words to Mary Ann: "O thou goddess, what age has brought thee forth? while shadows move round the convex mountains, while heaven feeds the stars, your name and praise I shall sing to whatever clime I may be called, - but I must leave you now, as the confounded swell is ordering up my supper...
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